Every time I get to the last line

after Lauren Zuniga

Every time I get to the last line
I wonder if it is enough – because
the last line should always
feel like a surprise gunshot
or a warm shower
or the fall of a rollercoaster
or waking from a four hour nap
on a Sunday afternoon;
A gift.

But it is always hard to finish a thing.
To punctuate a thought or a moment
or an entire lifetime, because truly
it all goes on. Even after the
bound covers are closed back together,
two lovers holding a family of words
between palms, again.

Even the exploding love,
or the hulking trauma,
or the anthologies of poems
about how our mothers hurt us will still
try to seep out back into the hands
of the next person to hold them.

As if they are only loyal
to the page until they can drip
through fingers one more time —
find new goose-bumped skin
and open eyes that can take them
down the gullet to the heart blood
and change a person.

So every time I get to the last line,
I try to give it a good set of lungs
for the journey.